Mount
Mounts are a much sought after form of transportation in which players ride atop the backs of various (bind on pickup) more or less exotic beasts (or machinations). Warlocks, Paladins and Death Knights can summon their mounts with special spells. Mounted travel is definitely faster than walking, and the Burning Crusade expansion introduced flying mounts. Mounts were generally expensive in the past, but their prices have been reduced while the training to ride them increased in order to compensate. However, some mounts do not cost any gold or Marks of Honor and will drop at very low rates from bosses in instances such as Stratholme, Zul'Gurub, Zul'Aman, Tempest Keep, Magisters' Terrace, Sethekk Halls, and Karazhan. Riding skills and abilities Several types of mounts exist, all which correspond to one of the four different riding skills: (Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, and Artisan). Apprentice: Level 30 Apprentice riding skill (75) costs for training and an additional for the mount, both reduced by the appropriate reputation discount. s increase movement speed by 60%. It was reduced from level 40 and for training in Patch 2.4.3. At level 30 (since Patch 2.4.3) warlocks can learn the spell Summon Felsteed at the cost of , which grants them a Felsteed mount and Apprentice Riding skill. Additionally, at level 30, Paladins can learn the spell Summon Warhorse from the Paladin Class trainer at the cost of , which grants them a Warhorse mount and the Apprentice Riding skill. Also, note under the old PvP system (pre-Patch 2.0), that it was possible at riding skill 75 and level 55 to buy and ride the PvP versions of some at Rank 11 ( Commander or Lieutenant General). These mounts are no longer available for purchase for players.PvP Ranks (Obsolete) and [http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=28547481&postId=282548538&sid=1#0 0. Patch 1.12.1 Riding Skill Changes 09/26/2006 07:38:58 PM PDT] by Batta Journeyman: Level 60 Journeyman riding skill (150) costs for training and an additional for the mount, both reduced by the appropriate reputation discount. increase movement speed by 100%. Death Knights receive their epic ground mount, the Acherus Deathcharger, after the completion of the quests Grand Theft Palomino and Into The Realm of Shadows. Death Knights can complete these quests as early as level 55. Expert: Level 70 Expert riding skill (225) costs for training and an additional for the mount. There are no reputation discounts available; this skill is learned from Ilsa Blusterbrew in Wildhammer Stronghold, Shadowmoon Valley to Alliance players and from Olrokk, located in Shadowmoon Village in the same zone, to Horde players. Flying mounts are also only usable while within Outland though within the expansion, most areas of Northrend will allow the use of flying mounts, but only at level 77 and above with cold weather flying traning. increase movement speed by 60% on the ground and in the air. Artisan: Level 70 Artisan riding skill (300) costs for training and an additional for the mount. The skill is learned from the same trainers who teach the Expert skill, and thus has no discount whatsoever. increase movement speed by 100% on the ground and 280% in the air. Cold Weather Flying: Level 77 The skill Cold Weather Flying costs . This non-discountable training grants players the ability to also use their flying mounts in Northrend. Requires at least level 77. Learned from: Hira Snowdawn at Dalaran, Pilot Vic in Sholazar or Roxi Ramrocket in the Storm Peaks. Base mounts Racial mounts Each race has their own mount, but other races can ride these mounts if they have the appropriate faction status. Prior to patch 3.0.8, each race could only ride certain mounts (indicated in the mount's tooltip). With the introduction of patch 3.0.8, these restrictions were removed, allowing characters of any race to purchase and ride mounts from any faction, provided they had the appropriate faction standing. Before the introduction of the Taurens' mount in patch 1.1, the kodo beast, Tauren players used an ability called plainsrunning. Class-granted mounts There are some classes in the game that can acquire special mounts linked to their own class through lore. These classes are the Paladin, the Death Knight and the Warlock, all actually given a type of horse. Prior to the expansion, in order to gain the epic version of the Paladin's or the Warlock's mount, one was ushered to pursue a very long quest chain sending one to every corner of Azeroth in search of rare ingredients; beside that, it also required a lot of gold. As a means to speed up leveling, as of the introduction of Wrath of the Lich King, these quests are now optional; the skill can be learned from the classes' respective trainer at level 61. The normal version of the mount has always been free, rewarded through a very minor quest. Purchasing other mounts You can purchase your own race's mount regardless of your reputation provided you have enough gold stockpiled. However, to purchase another race's mount, your reputation with that race's faction must be . Before Patch 1.12.1, it was required to get additional training to ride that race's mounts. After Patch 1.12.1, a universal riding skill was introduced that superseded all the mount-specific riding skills. Do keep in mind that mount vendors of cities owned by races other than your own will not show you what they have to offer unless you are exalted with them. Increasing the speed of your mount Through class abilities and talents Druids and Shamans acquire shapeshift forms that increase their movement speed (not as much as a mount, but it is trainable at an earlier level), while Hunters get aspects to boost their own movement speed and that of their party. Rogues have an ability to temporarily increase movement speed. Here are the skills and abilities that provide some classes with a bit of a faster movement speed, either passively or by the activation of an ability. * Druid ** Flight Form at level 68. Usable in Outland or Northrend only. Movement speed (flying) increased by 60%. Instant cast, cannot shapeshift in combat. Learning the ability also teaches Druids the Riding Skill 225 as the same time. Requires Riding skill 150 to learn. ** Swift Flight Form at level 70. Usable in Outland or Northrend only. Movement speed (flying) increased by 280%, 100% increase at ground level. Instant cast, cannot shapeshift in combat. It requires the druid to have 300 riding and can be learned from the trainer once you reach level 71 . It is also obtainable at the end of a long quest chain, requiring 300 riding skill to start, which culminates with the killing of Anzu, the Raven God in Heroic Sethekk Halls. * Hunter ** Pathfinding in the Beast Mastery talent tree (tier 3). Increases your speed while mounted by 5%/10%. The mounted movement speed increase does not stack with other effects. * Paladin ** Pursuit of Justice in the Retribution talent tree (tier 3). Increases your movement speed (and mounted movement speed) by 10%/15%. This does not stack with other speed increasing effects. ** Crusader Aura at level 62. Movement speed while mounted is increased by 20%. The mounted movement speed increase does not stack with other effects. * Death Knight ** On a Pale Horse in the Unholy tree (tier 4). Increases your speed while mounted by 10/20%. The mounted movement speed increase does not stack with other effects. Through items and enchants There are five other methods for increasing your mounted speed: * : +2% (stacking), world drop Enchanting recipe * : +3% (stacking), reward from the Gahz'rilla quest in Zul'Farrak with no affect to players above level 70 * : +4% (stacking), world drop Blacksmithing plans * : +10% (non-stacking), Leatherworking pattern sold in Old Hillsbrad Foothills with no affect to players above level 70 * : +10% (non-stacking), quest reward from , must be Honored with Netherwing with no affect to players above level 70 These last two items effectively increase a mount's speed by 10%. However, they do not stack with the previously mentioned methods, so they are approximately (see below) a 1% improvement over using the above 3 items combined. All speed improvement items work on both normal, as well as flying mounts (with the exception of npc controlled point-point flight). Characters higher than level 70 will not benefit from mount speed improvement trinkets. Blizzard's design goal is to eliminate the trinkets, but they've had technical issues with an implementation of an alternate system. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9336669931&pageNo=1&sid=2000#1 Statistics The first three effects act as percent multipliers of your total mounted speed, stacking with previous multipliers. Thus, if you have spurs but nothing else, your normal mount speed will be increased to about 166.4% ((100% + 60%) * 1.04 = 166.4%). These numbers were obtained experimentally using a position-tracking addon written specifically for this purpose. Available mounts Regular ground mounts Except for the , these are the regular ground mounts purchasable from racial vendors. Epic ground mounts Swift mounts have been available since Patch 1.4, making pre-1.4 mounts no longer purchasable. Pre-1.4 mounts have rare epic mount styles but different colors. Players with old epic mounts can exchange their mount for the newer mounts but since old epic mounts can no longer be purchased, people keep their old epic mount as a novelty. Trading Card Game Mounts All the TCG mounts must first be unlocked using a code found on a loot card, then they can be purchased from Landro Longshot in Booty Bay. } | None |- class="alt" | : | 60% | | Apprentice (75) |- | : | 100% | | Journeyman (150) |- class="alt" | : | 60% | | Expert (225) |- | : | 280% | | Artisan (300) |- | : | 100% | | Journeyman (150) |} BlizzCon Mounts The BlizzCon Mounts comes from the BlizzCon Welcome packages. The mounts must first be unlocked using a code found on the Blizzard Convention Card, the NPC's for unlocking the mounts can be found in Valley of Honor, Orgrimmar if you are Horde or in Forlorn Cavern, Ironforge if Alliance. } | Requires level 30 and Apprentice Riding skill (75); Mount speed capabilities based on player's riding skill. |} Legendary ground mounts Flying mounts Holiday mounts Recruit a friend These mounts are obtainable by recruiting a friend with the Recruit-A-Friend program. Achievement System These mounts are obtainable by completing certain achievements. Flying mounts in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms Blizzard officials have stated that it would be possible to "rebuild" the existing continents to accommodate for flying mounts, but this would take enormous amounts of time since Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms combined are more than four times the size of Outland. Comment from Drysc, a Blizzard representative: 2006, November 13 Unfortunately our designers and developers are not a limitless sea of people; there are decisions that have to be made as to where we should appropriately direct the development efforts. It's our feeling that providing new content, new places to explore and progress your character, new races and professions, all equal a very worthwhile expenditure of our resources. We're definitely committed to ensuring parts of the game already developed continue to be refined, but in this case delaying an expansion for a potentially "very long time" just wouldn't make sense, and wouldn't be very fair to our fans and players who would rather keep progressing their character than flying through places they've already been. ''Let's say that we did allow flying mounts in Azeroth and chose to redesign it at some point, it would be no small task. We would need to correct all of the terrain outside of the 'walkable' areas, including building out zones that currently don't exist but through lore are known to exist in those areas. We would also have to rework most outdoor areas as content not intended to be bypassed could be, as well as any possible terrain exploitation potential (ie lots of time testing and refining). We would need to think about what happens when the edge of the map is reached. Since Outland is flat, a bounding wall makes sense, but for a planet that starts to break down. Do players zone in to the other continent while flying or do we make it seamless? If it's seamless we have to rebuild our server architecture, not to mention any further technical issues, etc. etc. While summed up in a sentence or two each of these things would require teams of people working together for a long time to pull off well. ''It really all comes down to making the game fun to play for everyone, and allocating resources and time to do that as efficiently as possible. Right now spending time reworking Azeroth so that flying mounts can simply exist, for some ease of travel and sight seeing, doesn't seem like an appropriate use of our time or efforts. In the future though, who knows? Comment from Nethaera, another Blizzard representative: 2007, February 14 ''As much as people keep trying to convince us we need to do this there are reasons for things being the way they are. For one, Outland was created specifically with flying mounts in mind. From the ground up to the sky, we worked on the technology involved to make this happen. For another, by keeping them a part of Outland, it makes them unique to the new land and relays a sense of 'ooh and ahh' that they aren't commonplace all around Azeroth too. Also, to retro-fit Azeroth to allow for them would take a lot of time and it's time we'd much rather dedicate to moving forward towards new content than trying to rework something. ''Time and resources are two things we are very careful about and as you can see from reading the forums, a lot of people believe we should be doing more with it no matter how much we actually do. We do the best we can to put out fixes and content as quickly as possible but we have a constraint we've put on ourselves as well that if we are going to put something out there, that we should do it well and with Blizzard quality in mind. This is something that will always be at the top of our list to strive for. Wrath of the Lich King With ''World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, there will be some mounts that operate similarily to siege vehicles. These mounts have health bars, and will prevent you from taking any fall damage (Warning, your mount may explode). Additionally, some new mounts will enable you to carry additional passengers. Some even carry vendors! Examples of these are the and the . Furthermore, flying on mounts in Northrend will be possible from level 77 onwards, after players hit level 77 learn Cold Weather Flying by paying } to a "Cold Weather Flying Trainer". *New mounts have been added: :* - Summons and dismisses an Aquatic Riding Ray. This is an aquatic mount. :* - Summons and dismisses a rideable Forsaken Warhorse. This is a very fast mount. :* - Summons and dismisses a rideable Great Azuremyst Elekk. This is a very fast mount. :* - Summons and dismisses a rideable Great Mulgore Kodo. This is a very fast mount. :* (Image) - Summons and dismisses a rideable mechanical gnome head. This is a very fast construction. This construction can only be summoned in Outland or Northrend. :* - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Darnassian Mistaber. This is a very fast mount. :* - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Ironforge Ram. This is a very fast mount. :* - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Orgrimmar Wolf. This is a very fast mount. :* - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Sen'jin Raptor. This is a very fast mount. :* - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Silvermoon Hawkstrider. This is a very fast mount. :* - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Stormwind Steed. This is a very fast mount. :* - Summons and dismisses a rideable Turbostrider. This is a very fast mount. *The armor on the Frostwolf Howler is now black. (From PTR 2/26) See also * Riding skill * Transportation category for a detailed list of methods of transportation in WoW. * Mounts category for a list of articles on mounts. * If you want to get a head start, read a Guide for Preparing to Buy a Mount. * Fresh Holly, a way to transform your mount into a reindeer for half an hour * Locations of fixed devices throughout Azeroth, including where to purchase mounts. Notes * Flying mounts can perform a loop! Press Pitch Up or Pitch Down (normally Ins and Del) while in flight to perform a loop. * If Pitch Up or Pitch Down doesn't cause a "loop", open the console and type: /console pitchlimit 99999. This removes the restriction on pitching and thus allows you to fly upside down and perform loops. * Additionally, while in a loop, you can use your strafe keys. * From patch 3.1.0 onwards mounts will be able to swim. References External links Category:Game terms Category:World of Warcraft mount items